KARACHI: A leading Pakistani company announced on Friday it was going to set up Samsung mobile phone assembly plant in Pakistan, adding it had already approached the country’s telecom regulator to secure license for the purpose.
“Lucky Motor Corporation (LMC), a subsidiary of Lucky Cement, has entered into an agreement with Samsung Gulf Electronics (a company based in South Korea) for producing Samsung branded mobile phone devices in Pakistan,” the Pakistani organization said in a written statement.
“In pursuance of this transaction, LMC has also initiated the process of seeking necessary regulatory approvals to carry on the business,” the statement continued, adding that the local firm had “filed an application with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority [PTA] to secure” the permit.
The cement company diversified in the automobile sector by manufacturing, assembling, marketing and distributing KIA and Peugeot vehicles. It also sells spare parts and accessories of these cars in Pakistani market.
The company announced it would set up its cellphone production facility at LMC’s existing plant in Karachi’s Bin Qasim Industrial Park.
The production facility is expected to be completed in December, said the company statement.
According to the PTA, Pakistan’s total annual market size of mobile phones is estimated at 34 million handsets out of which 20 million are 2G and 14 million are 3G/4G.
In terms of its value, the market size of mobile sets in Pakistan is estimated to be about $2.5 billion, based on import data provided by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
The PTA informed Arab News last month that the country had manufactured 5.34 million 2G and 2.23 million 3G/4G devices since the beginning of the year until May 2021.
While the LMC says it will soon discuss its investment level with Samsung, analysts maintain the amount could be about $100 million.
“The investment size is rumored to be around $100 million,” Muhammad Sohail, chief executive officer of Topline Securities, said.
“Our working suggests the venture can generate an annual revenue of about $300-600 million and the project can make net profits of Rs1 billion to Rs1.5 billion in its formative phase,” he added.
Samsung had setup an assembly plant in Bangladesh in 2018 which proved to be a success, with an average output of about 2.5 million units annually.
The Pakistani government is also providing protection to the industry though its Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy which can potentially reduce the rates of locally manufactured handsets by about 50 percent.
Pakistan has granted a 10-year mobile device manufacturing authorization to 19 companies in the country under the mobile device manufacturing regulations.